Escaping Circe’s Island

Shir Khan is watching

I returned to Rishikesh via the Jim Corbett National Park — the northernmost tiger reserve in India. Named after the British adventurer-turned-conservationist Jim Corbett, who once hunted big cats before dedicating his life to protecting them. The descent from the Himalayas into the jungle was mesmerising. I felt like I’d ridden straight into a Kipling novel — wild monkeys swung from the trees, and rustling rivers spilled into deep pools of crystal-clear water.

I never saw any of the estimated 250 elusive tigers, but their presence was undeniable. At times, the park grew eerily silent — the birds and monkeys would abruptly fall quiet, the heat thick and still. It was as if Shere Khan himself was watching from the undergrowth. Riding through felt like travelling in a glowing green tunnel, the high canopy casting everything in a soft fluorescence. Tara and I kept cool under its shade, the wind from the ride whispering through us as we sped along surprisingly well-kept roads.

But my Jungle Book daydreams distracted me from my goal: to reach Rishikesh in under four hours. I kept stopping — for pictures, to soak in the atmosphere. Eventually, I had to climb out of the jungle, back onto the ridgelines of the lower Himalayas to cross a few passes and descend into the Rishikesh valley.

 Atop a ridge, overlooking the vast green below, I sat astride Tara and watched the sunset blaze gold over the hills. “If the price of such a sunset is riding through the jungle at night on Indian roads, it’s worth it,” I told myself. It wasn’t.

 What should’ve taken an hour took three — drunk lorry drivers, cratered roads, and giant potholes hidden in the dark. By the time I reached Rishikesh, I was shattered — but also relieved. I was starting to feel like this place, somehow, was becoming a home. A home away from the one I no longer had. Its quiete streets lining the ganges, its yoga students flocking to the locals cafes. The ever present semll of incense mixed with cow shit. The sound of singing in the local ashrams. The monkeys swinging from tree branches to pwer cables. The friendly cooky eating steet dogs. It felt like home.

Despite the respite of being back in a place that felt safe my adrenal system was still firing all cylinders. I was running. I kept telling myself to slow down — “just slow the pace, slow the pace.” But my actions didn’t match my intentions. Relaxing didn’t come easy. I was still Major Clark — always planning, always preparing, anxious about the future, haunted by the past.

Reunited with a Dragon

I’d bought myself a few days before heading to Calcutta — time to rest. To my surprise, Val, my dragon-riding brother from Kabul, reappeared — still on his Promethean quest around the world, we had parted ways in Northern Pakistan it was a delight to spend some time with him. For a few precious days, we wandered the lanes of Rishikesh, talking life, philosophy, Hinduism. We opened the doors of our own perceptions in this vibrant, spiritual, and utterly complex land.

India was pulling me in. I was falling for its people, its colour, its chaos, its teeming life force that seemed to pulse through everything. One afternoon, while walking past a mangrove, I stopped dead — there, in the bark of the trunk, was what looked like the eye of an elephant. It stared at me, benevolent and reassuring. It blinked. For a moment, the whole tree shimmered and became, to us, a manifestation of Krishna. Val and I stood rooted. It was as though the gods had looked into our souls — and let us glimpse the soul of India, just for a minute. Simultaneously a chorus of young hari krishnas appeared behind us singing and carrying torches to head down to the setting of the sun rituals by the ganges. It was good to be in the presence f Val his ever inquisitive and sharp mind was hard to keep up with at times, his ideas carried so much depth and yet clarity it was a joy to just sit around and discuss the world together.

Life was starting to slow down. The Ganga river is a constant in Rishikesh it flows through the town straight down from the Himalayas, untainted by industrialism and pollution, as clear as its ever going to be. It sooths everything it touches including my wearied traveling soul.

But I was still due in Calcutta. Val and I parted ways, hatching schemes to reunite somewhere in Southeast Asia and ride north into China. He would head south, hunting for some long-forgotten Soma recipe. My route, uncertain as ever — perhaps Nepal, air-freighting from Kathmandu. Or I’d wait for the snowmelt and ride across Tibet to Laos.

 Rishikeshing

Despite feeling a bit more grounded my mind felt fogged, yet Rishikesh offered peace — I had friends, a routine, a simple room. Mornings began with swims in the Ganga, followed by tea with sharp, thoughtful people at the local chai shack — just a roadside lean-to with two benches and a makeshift tarpaulin roof. They served twenty-rupee masala chai and butter-toasted buns for the same price. We’d gather there, watching the world roll by, gossiping, trading philosophical takes on existence and the absurdity of it all. On weekends, we’d scoff as the Delhi crowd descended on rental scooters, inevitably crashing or slipping on the cow-shit mines scattered across the narrow lanes. Laloo, the street dog, had adopted me. The cost of living was low. Life was simple.

 The vegetarian food was a problem, though. But like many things in India, even that was layered in contradiction. Vegetarianism here often masked a hidden hunger. Mo and Ash, two ashram renegades, had initiated me into the meat-eating underworld. We’d sneak to the Muslim quarter, buy meat on the sly, and cook it in secret — our rooms thick with the smell of contraband dinners. The ashram dogs helped with the cleanup, devouring the scraps like loyal accomplices.

 This quiet, strange community had become something meaningful. Which is why it was with a knot in my chest that I left for Calcutta — to meet Em. Things with Em hadn’t gone well in the lead-up. Distance, war zones, stress, my temper — all had muddied the water.

I was excited, of course. But nervous too. Our relationship was a rollercoaster, and the thought of plunging into another chaotic Indian megacity filled me with dread.

Rishikesh had offered me peace — or at least a version of it. It was as quiet as an Indian town can be, which is to say: complete madness by Western standards, but I’d grown fond of it. So much so that even Tara’s horn had nearly worn out from overuse.

Leaving Tara behind felt strange — like I was abandoning some part of my freedom. But it was also a relief, to have a break from the road, from the machine, from the identity I’d forged around her. It was a paradox. Freedom in letting go of the 300 kg metal suitcase — and yet anxiety at loosing the freedom she offered.

Calcutta

 I boarded the second flight of my trip — from Dehradun to Calcutta. Once again, Indian airports impressed me with their efficiency and cleanliness, almost laughably so. A clever bit of misdirection. Tourists might land thinking the airport reflects the country. But step outside, and the illusion vanishes fast.

 I slept through most of the flight — maybe a sign of how worn down I really was.

 Calcutta, seen from the air, sprawled endlessly. I was relieved not to be riding through it — though part of me hated breaking my rule: no flying unless absolutely necessary. The city rises out of the Ganga delta, surrounded by mangroves and deadly swamps. Despite its ancient roots, modern Calcutta was built by the British East India Company as a strategic outpost — a pipeline to extract India’s wealth. Its colonial legacy sat uncomfortably with me. I took some strange comfort in my Scottish-Hungarian ancestry, as if that somehow placed me outside the colonial lineage. But truth be told, had I been born in another time, I might have joined the Company too — chasing glory and gold.

The city — built on a swamp — has grown into a sprawling Tier One mega-city. As with everything in India, it’s a place of extremes. On the drive from the airport, one sees lavish high-rises with rooftop sky gardens for the mega rich, standing in stark contrast to the streets below — a pulsing tide of horns, poverty, amputees asleep on wooden carts, smog, sweat, and bright smiles stretched thin over weary bones. Calcutta was chaos — very different from the spiritual bubble of Rishikesh. Here, Bengalis, Bangladeshis, Hindus, and Muslims lived in a crowded, swirling cacophonic mosaic.

 I wasn’t ready for it. I craved the stillness of the river, the chants of the sadhus. Stress crept back into my chest, magnified by the anticipation of seeing Em again.

 When we met, it was awkward. Tentative. The months apart had put distance between us. We’d both retreated into our separate worlds, and rebuilding the bridge wasn’t as easy as before. There was something erratic about her I couldn’t place. And I was on edge. I hated the city. I needed quiet, and this place was anything but. Still, slowly, intimacy returned. The tension eased. A few hours later, we were asleep in each other’s arms.

 Flowers and Heartbreak

 At dawn the next day, Em woke me — she wanted to photograph the famous flower market. It was my first time seeing her in full creative mode: relentless, electric, focused. Her pace was exhausting. Normally, I might have matched it. But my batteries were dead.

 The market itself was a blur of marigolds, shouting vendors, fumes from idling rickshaws, and the brown Ganga churning at the city’s edge. In Rishikesh, the river had been turquoise, pure, flowing down from the Himalayan heights. Here, it was thick and dark — poisoned by the same industrial families whose Instagramming children later praised its "mystical energy" on social media. India is a land of contradictions, and its sacred river one of the clearest. Revered and ruined in equal measure.

 Em was fearless — she’d get right up in people’s faces with her camera, somehow doing it with grace. Where I’d hesitate, she leaned in. At first, her subjects would look puzzled, then soften, then smile. Her eye was remarkable. But her rhythm was too much for me. I wilted. I slipped back to the hotel.

 My diary that day was venomous:

 “Dirty, sprawling city built on a fucking swamp by greedy British colonisers. Why would anyone live here except to control the river and plunder the mainland?”

 That night, things fell apart. Again.

 It wasn’t a big fight — just a comment. She said, “If I were travelling like you, I’d do it differently.” Something about the way she said it set off all my alarms. My paranoia. My insecurities. Was I doing it wrong? Was she criticising me? I was too tired, too vulnerable.

 That small comment cracked open a flood of self-doubt and shame.

 I went silent. She pressed. I told her.

 And that was it.

 Another sleepless night. The sticky Calcutta heat. In the morning, she left, she needed space, I was suffocating her.

 I sat alone, tormented. The black dog returned. Old thoughts resurfaced — the same ones I thought I’d left behind. Worthlessness. Shame. Self-hate. The temptation to vanish.

 It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I’d changed all my plans for her, projected too much onto something too fragile. I needed rest, not romance. I needed solitude, not emotional refuge. I’d clung to her like a lifeboat, and it capsized.

I begged her to stay. Lost all dignity. I cried. Pleaded. She kissed me softly — and that was the last time I saw her.

I was a mess again. On the other side of the world. A heartbreak of my own making. I had too many ghosts chasing me — how could anyone keep up?

 So I resumed the road alone. Let it do its work. and returned to Rishkesh.

Delhi-rium

So what was meant to be a three-week romantic trip became a three-day heartbreak. I found myself on a plane back to Rishikesh — via Delhi. Nate, the Tennessee nomad I’d met in Tblissi, was in town. He took pity on me and dragged me out for an impromptu drinking session with his Indian girlfriend, Ivanika.

 Ivanika had once been a design student in the U.S., until she was hit by a car in a hit-and-run — left for dead. She spent months in a coma, her prognosis grim. But through grit and stubborn will, she clawed her way back. She could walk, speak, move again. A firecracker of a woman. “You do you, boo-boo!” she shouted, raising a whisky as we tore through bottle after bottle.

 She was part of Delhi’s elite. After enough rounds, we ended up in a private club near Prime Minister Modi’s house — a haven for India’s upper class. Inside, it was all velvet, neon, and depravity. A scene Fitzgerald might have written if he’d swapped Long Island for Lutyens’ Delhi. Decadence without shame. Outside: beggars and chaos. Inside: cocktails and house music.

 It was disorienting. But it numbed the pain.

 Being with Nate and Ivanka was a kind of medicine. Their energy was manic, wild, ridiculous — but it distracted me. Nate, in full Deep South mode, dropping slang like molasses, Ivonika rolling joints like confetti. It felt like I’d fallen into some psychedelic Southern Gothic dream. A dirty glittering parallel world where heartbreaks didn’t exist. Or at least didn’t matter.

 It was good to be among the wild ones again.